NY Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit against Kiryas Joel pipeline

A state Supreme Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit attempting to stop construction of Kiryas Joel's pipeline to the Catskill Aqueduct and the village's plan to connect a well to the pipeline in Cornwall as an additional water source.

A state Supreme Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit attempting to stop construction of Kiryas Joel's pipeline to the Catskill Aqueduct and the village's plan to connect a well to the pipeline in Cornwall as an additional water source.

In a ruling signed Monday, Justice Joan Lefkowitz decided that the villages of Woodbury and Harriman and the Town of Woodbury had waited too long to protest that Kiryas Joel had increased its pipe diameter to 24 inches before starting construction, instead of the 18-inch width identified in the project's environmental impact statement in 2009. The lawsuit was filed in April 2013, shortly after Kiryas Joel began laying the pipe, and later amended with additional claims.

Lefkowitz also concluded that the plaintiffs provided no grounds to overturn Kiryas Joel's determination in December 2012 that activating the Cornwall well would have no negative environmental impact.

The Woodburys and Harriman had argued that Kiryas Joel had failed to consider whether pumping up to 600,000 gallons a day from the Cornwall well would take water from an already permitted Woodbury wellfield that uses the same aquifer, or analyze other potential factors such as the increased demand it could place on Orange County's sewage treatment plant in Harriman.

The plaintiffs also had contended that expanding the pipe diameter would increase the impact of Kiryas Joel's $45 million water project, since it would enable it to draw more water for future growth.

In response to objections to Kiryas Joel's proposed well off Route 32 in the Mountainville section of Cornwall, the state Department of Environmental Conservation will hold a hearing on the village's permit application at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on April 29 at Cornwall High School.

Pipeline construction stopped for the winter in November and was due to resume last month, but has yet to do so.